May
17
2012
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
“New US claims for unemployment benefits were unchanged last week, according to government data on Thursday that will do little to ease concerns about a recent slowdown in jobs growth. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits held steady at a seasonally adjusted 370,000, the Labor Department said. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 370,000 from the previously reported 367,000.” So there was not a 1,000 claim decrease. There was a 3,000 increase in unemployment claims. Jobless claims did not fall by a thousand last week as originally reported. They were up. And today’s number next Thursday will be revised up again. That’s how you know it’s Thursday. The jobless claims are always up.
Last week’s AP headline: “US applications for unemployment aid dipped to 367,000.” Reuters: “Jobless claims fall, trade gap widens.” So essentially we had a net increase of 2,000 claims for unemployment. They said we were down a thousand; they had to revise it up three, so we had a net increase of 2,000 new claims for unemployment, new people signing up for unemployment, 2,000 new people. From one week to the next, a lie, totally exposed. So there was no good news last week. And remember how everybody reacted to it last week. It went both ways. Those who wanted to be happy that the number went from 8.2 to 8.1 were, but then cold water was thrown on that. It had to be reported that the number went down because there are fewer people in the labor force, not because any jobs were being created.
The AP story today: “US unemployment aid applications stay at 370,000.” No, no, no. No, AP is lying. Last week’s AP report had ‘em at 367,000. For AP to be honest with their original reporting, this headline would say: “US unemployment aid applications increase by 2,000.” “The number of people seeking unemployment benefits unchanged last week, suggesting steady gains in the job market.” It suggests no such thing. That’s an out-and-out lie. The number of people seeking unemployment benefits was unchanged last week, suggesting steady gains in the job market? Steady gains? The applications for unemployment insurance went up last week, not down. And it wasn’t just last week. The numbers have been revised up 17 weeks in a row. They had been revised up 62 out of the last 63 weeks. That’s how you know it’s Thursday. Unemployment claims will be revised upwards.
END TRANSCRIPT
May
17
2012
The Vetting – Exclusive – Obama’s Literary Agent in 1991 Booklet: ‘Born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii’
Note from Senior Management:
Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.” In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama’s ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.
It is for that reason that we launched “The Vetting,” an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)–not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.
It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below–one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review.
It is evidence–not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.
The booklet, which was distributed to “business colleagues” in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.
It also promotes Obama’s anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White–which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.
Obama’s biography in the booklet is as follows (image and text below):
Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.
The booklet, which is thirty-six pages long, is printed in blue ink (and, on the cover, silver/grey ink), using offset lithography. It purports to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of Acton & Dystel, which was founded in 1976.
Front cover (inside)
Jay Acton no longer represents Obama. However, Jane Dystel still lists Obama as a client on her agency’s website.
According to the booklet itself, the text was edited by Miriam Goderich, who has since become Dystel’s partner at Dystel & Goderich, an agency founded in 1994. Breitbart News attempted to reach Goderich by telephone several times over several days. Her calls are screened by an automated service that requires callers to state their name and company, which we did. She never answered.
The design of the booklet was undertaken by Richard Bellsey, who has since closed his business. Bellsey, reached by telephone, could not recall the exact details of the booklet, but told Breitbart News that it “sounds like one of our jobs, like I did for [Acton & Dystel] twenty years ago or more.”
The reverse side of the page that features Barack Obama includes former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader and early-1990s “boy band” pop sensation New Kids On the Block.
He indicated that while “almost nobody” wrote his or her own biography, the non-athletes in the booklet, whom “the agents deal[t] with on a daily basis,” were “probably” approached to approve the text as presented.
Dystel did not respond to numerous requests for comment, via email and telephone. Her assistant told Breitbart News that Dystel “does not answer questions about Obama.”
The errant Obama biography in the Acton & Dystel booklet does not contradict the authenticity of Obama’s birth certificate. Moreover, several contemporaneous accounts of Obama’s background describe Obama as having been born in Hawaii.
The biography does, however, fit a pattern in which Obama–or the people representing and supporting him–manipulate his public persona.
David Maraniss’s forthcoming biography of Obama has reportedly confirmed, for example, that a girlfriend Obama described in Dreams from My Father was, in fact, an amalgam of several separate individuals.
In addition, Obama and his handlers have a history of redefining his identity when expedient. In March 2008, for example, he famously declared: “I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.”
Several weeks later, Obama left Wright’s church–and, according to Edward Klein’s new biography, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, allegedly attempted to persuade Wright not to “do any more public speaking until after the November [2008] election” (51).
Obama has been known frequently to fictionalize aspects of his own life. During his 2008 campaign, for instance, Obama claimed that his dying mother had fought with insurance companies over coverage for her cancer treatments.
That turned out to be untrue, but Obama has repeated the story–which even the Washington Post called “misleading”–in a campaign video for the 2012 election.
The Acton & Dystel biography could also reflect how Obama was seen by his associates, or transitions in his own identity. He is said, for instance, to have cultivated an “international” identity until well into his adulthood, according to Maraniss.
Regardless of the reason for Obama’s odd biography, the Acton & Dystel booklet raises new questions as part of ongoing efforts to understand Barack Obama–who, despite four years in office remains a mystery to many Americans, thanks to the mainstream media.
Larry O’Connor contributed to this report.
May
16
2012
By Erik Wasson and Daniel Strauss – 05/16/12
A budget resolution based on President Obama’s 2013 budget failed to get any votes in the Senate on Wednesday.
In a 99-0 vote, all of the senators present rejected the president’s blueprint.
It’s the second year in a row the Senate has voted down Obama’s budget.
Obama’s 2012 budget failed 97 to 0 last May after Obama himself last April said he wanted deeper deficit cuts.
The House earlier this year unanimously rejected Obama’s budget.
The White House sought to provide cover for Democrats to vote against the Obama budget resolution before the vote, arguing the resolution offered by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) was different from Obama’s budget because it did not include policy report language.
Democrats made the same point on the floor Wednesday in explaining their votes.
The Senate is also voting on four GOP budget blueprints, which are also expected to be defeated.
The GOP believes the series of votes will showcase the party’s ability to produce plans that eventually balance the budget with the lack of a Democratic alternative.
Republicans have hammered Senate Democrats for their inability to produce a budget, which the GOP notes is approaching three years.
But the GOP push was blunted a bit when the House Republican budget from Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was also defeated in a 41-58 vote.
The “no” votes included five Republicans: Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Scott Brown (Mass.), Rand Paul (Ky.) and Dean Heller (Nev.). Heller and Brown are both in competitive reelection battles this fall.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) initially voted against Ryan’s budget but then changed her vote to “yes.” She had voted against Ryan’s budget last year.
Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign pounced on the news, noting more than 500 members of Congress had now gone on record opposing Obama’s budget.
“President Obama is clearly in over his head and incapable of leading the country,” Lanhee Chen, Romney’s policy director, said in a statement. “It is time to turn to Mitt Romney’s proven experience and leadership.”
The other three budget resolutions sponsored by Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Paul, and Mike Lee (R-Utah) failed in 42-57, 16-83, and 17-82 votes, respectively.
No Democrats voted for any of the budgets and Collins, Brown, Heller and Snowe voted against all the plans.
—This story was updated at 5:24 p.m.
May
16
2012
Why did Michelle Obama come home from the Middle East trip and not continue on to Saudi Arabia and Egypt? READ AND PONDER……
WHY MICHELLE CAME HOME – Interesting!
Sheppard Smith, Fox News.
“If you check President Obama’s last trip over-seas, his wife left just after their visit to France . She has yet to accompany him to any Arab country. Think about it. Why is Michelle returning to the states when ‘official’ trips to foreign countries generally include the First Lady.”
Here’s one thought on the matter.
While in a Blockbuster renting videos I came a cross a video called “Obama”. There were two men standing next to me and we talked about President Obama. These guys were Arabs, so I asked them why they thought Michelle Obama headed home following the President’s recent visit to France instead of traveling on to Saudi Arabia and Turkey with her husband.
They told me she could not go to Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Iraq.
I said “Why not,(?) Laura Bush went to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Dubai.”
They said that Obama is a Muslim and therefore he is not allowed to bring his wife into countries that adhere to Sharia Law.
Two points of interest here:
1) I thought it interesting that two American Arabs at Blockbuster believe that our President is a Muslim, who follows a strict Islamic creed.
2) They also said that’s the reason he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. It was a signal to the Muslim world, acknowledging his religion.
For further consideration, here is a response from Dr. Jim Murk, a Middle Eastern Scholar and expert on Islam. This is his explanation of what the Arab American’s were saying.
“An orthodox Muslim man would never take his wife on a politically oriented trip to any nation which practices Sharia law, particularly Saudi Arabia where the Wahhabi sect is dominant. This is true and it is why Obama left Michelle in Europe. She will stay home when he visits Arab countries. He knows Muslim protocol; this includes, bowing to the Saudi King. Obama is regarded as a Muslim in the Arab world, because he was born to a Muslim father; he acknowledged his Muslim faith with George Stephanopoulus.
Note that he downplays his involvement with Christianity, by not publicly joining a Christian church in D.C. And occasionally attending the chapel for services at Camp David . He also played down the fact that America is a Christian country and said, unbelievably, that it was one of the largest Muslim nations in the world, which is nonsense. He has publicly taken the side of the Palestinians in the conflict with Israel and he ignored the National Day of Prayer, something no other President has ever done. He is bad news! He conceals his true faith to the detriment of the American people.”
— Jim Murk, Doctor of Philosophy in Middle Eastern Culture & Religion.
ACTIONS speak louder than words. Another interesting item regarding Sharia Law.
Why has Barack Hussein Obama insisted that the U.S. Attorney General hold the trials of the 911 Muslim Terrorists in Civilian Courts as Common Criminals instead of as Terrorists who attacked the United States of America? If the Muslim Terrorists are tried in Military Tribunals, convicted and sentenced to death, by LAW, Barack Hussein Obama, as President of the United States, would be required to sign their death warrants. He would not be required to sign the death warrants if they are sentenced to death by a Civilian Court. Recently,
Muslim Jihadist, Army Major Hassan slaughtered non-Muslim, soldiers at Ft. Hood, Texas rather than go to Afghanistan and be a part of anything that could lead to the deaths of fellow Muslims. He stated that Muslims ‘could not and should not kill fellow Muslims.’ Is the motive for Barack Hussein Obama’s insistence on civilian trials, to make sure he doesn’t have to sign the death warrants for the Muslim Terrorists? Why would he, as President of the United States, not sign the death warrants for Muslim Terrorists who attacked the United States and murdered over 3,000 U. S. Citizens on 9/11? Could it be that he is FORBIDDEN by his RELIGION to authorize the execution of Muslims?
Think about that! Open your eyes, ears and mind to who the President is, how he behaves and what he is doing! Actions speak louder than teleprompter-written words!
May
16
2012
By SHAILA DEWAN
Hundreds of millions of dollars meant to provide a little relief to the nation’s struggling homeowners is being diverted to plug state budget gaps.
Max Whittaker for The New York Times
Protesters staged a rally against home foreclosures in California on Tuesday outside the State Capitol in Sacramento.
In a budget proposed this week, California joined more than a dozen states that want to help close gaping shortfalls using money paid by the nation’s biggest banks and earmarked for foreclosure prevention, investigations of financial fraud and blunting the ill effects of the housing crisis. California was awarded more than $400 million from the banks, and Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed using the bulk of that sum to pay the state’s debts.
The money was part of a national settlement valued at $25 billion and negotiated with five big banks over abuses in their mortgage and foreclosure processes.
The settlement, reached in February after a year of talks and intervention by the Obama administration, was the second-largest in history involving the states, trailing the tobacco industry settlement, and represented the first large-scale commitment by banks to provide direct aid to borrowers.
As part of the settlement, the banks agreed to pay the states $2.5 billion, money intended to help homeowners and mitigate the effects of the foreclosure surge. But critics complained that this was the only cash the banks were required to pay — the rest comes in the form of “credits” for reducing mortgage debt and other activities. Even that relatively small amount has proved too great a temptation for lawmakers.
Only 27 states have devoted all their funds from the banks to housing programs, according to a report by Enterprise Community Partners, a national affordable housing group. So far about 15 states have said they will use all or most of the money for other purposes.
In Texas, $125 million went straight to the general fund. Missouri will use its $40 million to soften cuts to higher education. Indiana is spending more than half its allotment to pay energy bills for low-income families, while Virginia will use most of its $67 million to help revenue-starved local governments.
Like California, some other states with outsize problems from the housing bust are spending the money for something other than homeowner relief. Georgia, where home prices are still falling, will use its $99 million to lure companies to the state.
“The governor has decided to use the discretionary money for economic development,” said a spokesman for Nathan Deal, Georgia’s governor, a Republican. “He believes that the best way to prevent foreclosures amongst honest homeowners who have experienced hard times is to create jobs here in our state.”
Andy Schneggenburger, the executive director of the Atlanta Housing Association of Neighborhood-Based Developers, said the decision showed “a real lack of comprehension of the depths of the foreclosure problem.”
The $2.5 billion was intended to be under the control of the state attorneys general, who negotiated the settlement with the five banks — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Ally. But there is enough wiggle room in the agreement, as well as in separate terms agreed to by each state, to give legislatures and governors wide latitude. The money can, for example, be counted as a “civil penalty” won by the state, and some leaders have argued that states are entitled to the money because the housing crash decimated tax collections.
Shaun Donovan, the federal housing secretary, has been privately urging state officials to spend the money as intended. “Other uses fail to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the settlement to bring real, concerted relief to homeowners and the communities in which they live,” he said Tuesday.
Some attorneys general have complied quietly with requests to repurpose the money, while others have protested. Lisa Madigan, the Democratic attorney general of Illinois, said she would oppose any effort to divert the funds. Tom Horne, the Republican attorney general of Arizona, said he disagreed with the state’s move to take about half its $97 million, which officials initially said was needed for prisons.
But Mr. Horne said he would not oppose the shift because the governor and the Legislature had authority over budgetary matters. The Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest has said it will sue to stop Mr. Horne from transferring the money.
In California, Attorney General Kamala D. Harris had played hardball in the settlement negotiations, holding out until the very end for a deal guaranteeing that a large share of the benefits would go to California, and then trumpeting her success in a news conference and a flurry of interviews with national news outlets. So Mr. Brown’s revised budget put her in an awkward position.
“While the state is undeniably facing a difficult budget gap,” she said in a statement, “these funds should be used to help Californians stay in their homes.” Both officials are Democrats.
When asked if Mr. Brown could legally appropriate the money, which is supposed to be held in a special fund “for the benefit of California homeowners affected by the mortgage/foreclosure crisis,” a spokesman for Ms. Harris declined to comment.
Just last week, Ms. Harris announced plans to give about half the money to groups that provide housing counseling and legal assistance to homeowners — groups whose budgets have shrunk while demand for their services grows. The other half would be used primarily for investigation of mortgage-related crime.
States using some or all of their money for housing have designated it for a wide variety of programs, like a small fund for low-interest loans to build housing in low-income neighborhoods, in Virginia, and Ohio’s sweeping plan to demolish abandoned property.
In New York, Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman stepped in with $15 million in settlement money for housing counseling and legal assistance when state support ran out last month, and plans to spend the bulk of its $130 million on similar programs. North Dakota will use its tiny allotment, $1.9 million, to provide housing to police officers and emergency responders in its booming oil-field counties, where shelter is scarce.
Using the money for other purposes is shortsighted, housing advocates warn. “If you leave homeowners hanging out there to dry, then in the short term maybe you help to meet the budget gap this year,” said Maeve Elise Brown, the executive director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, based in Oakland. “But in the long term the more people we have going through foreclosure, the worse it’s going to be for our economy as a whole.”
In some states, redirecting the money could have a racially discriminatory effect, said Alan Jenkins, the executive director of the Opportunity Agenda, which supports homeownership, because in some cities black homeowners disproportionately lost their homes, Mr. Jenkins said.
“If you dump all of these funds into the general coffers, the African-American homeowners are not going to benefit in any real way because they represent such a small percentage of the larger state,” Mr. Jenkins said.
May
16
2012
Studies into Sexual History and Erectile Dysfunction
Money goes to UCSF. A watchdog group questions spending decisions.
The NBC Investigative Unit has raised questions about two grants totaling nearly $1.5 million dollars distributed to the University of California San Francisco. The money was part of the federal stimulus program and went to studies into the erectile dysfunction of overweight middle aged men and the accurate reporting of someone’s sexual history.
This is part of our ongoing series of investigations by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit into who got federal stimulus dollars, and why some projects did not break ground more than two years after receiving the grant.
The Investigative Unit looked closely at the federal government’s decision to spend nearly $1.5 million dollars of taxpayer money, money that came here to California. Grant number 1R01HD056950-01A2 was among the thousands of grants funded, receiving $1.2 million dollars. This grant studied how to improve the accuracy of how people responded to questions about their sexual history.
“If you honestly report on your sexual activity and number of partners?” Scott Amey with asked with a sigh. “That’s a good one.”
Amey is the general council for POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington D.C. nonpartisan non-profit government watchdog group. During our interview with an NBC crew he tried to explain why the government used that many tax dollars to improve self reports about high risk sexual behavior.
“I don’t think most tax payers would think that would be a justified spending of stimulus money to conduct a sex study over fixing bridges and roads that are crumbling every day,” Amey added.
NBC Bay Area talked to the University of California San Francisco, the institution that received the grant. “Does it make you wonder a little bit, stimulus money for a study like this?” Kovaleski asked Jeff Sheehy, who works at the UCSF Aids Research Center. “No it doesn’t,” he answered. “Because to my mind we save money if we get better health outcomes.”
According to the grant, a good portion of the study will “Improve the accuracy of responses to questions,” specifically questions about a person’s sexual behavior. “Playing devil’s advocate,” Kovaleski said to Sheehy, “Do taxpayers need to spend $1.2 million dollars to figure this out?”"The judgment wasn’t one that I was asked,” Sheehy replied.
The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit discovered that for $1.2 million dollars, taxpayers funded a study that included 200 videotaped interviews at $6000 per interview. Kovaleski asked Sheehy to justify the spending. “I think the average person is going to look at $1.2 million dollars to interview 200 people and say Wow!” Sheehy defended the study. “I understand people could look at it and have issues but this is research,” he said.
Kovaleski then asked about jobs. “How many jobs did this $1.26 million dollars create?” “Well I can’t really say,” Sheehy said. “There were eleven researchers hired on the job, two consultants. Well I can’t say. This has not been evaluated for job creation.”
The number Sheehy quoted during an interview with NBC Bay Area did not match information on recovery.gov, the government’s website for stimulus funds. According to the site, the grant produced 0.85 jobs. “It does make you scratch your head and wonder,” Amey said, “Wait a second taxpayer dollars went to a sex study that barely funded less than one person.”
Amey was also left questioning another UCSF grant. When asked by an NBC reporter about a study into erectile dysfunction involving overweight middle aged men he replied, “Oh boy.”
The grant totaled more than a quarter million dollars. Although UCSF was willing to discuss our questions about the sexual history grant, the University declined to provide an expert to talk with the NBC Investigative Unit about the erectile dysfunction grant. In a written statement provided they said in part, “Obesity related health issues currently cost $147 Billion per year in direct medical costs in the United States….. Health providers therefore continue to search for incentives to encourage people to live a healthier lifestyle, to benefit both indviduals and society…. Preliminary analysis indicates that is is feasible to enroll men in this type of research, they successfully lose the expected weight over a 12-week period, and they see an improvement in ED symptoms.” You can read the entire statement by clicking here.
Click here to see the high risk sexual behavior grant
Click here to see the erectile dysfunction grant
If you have any other examples of questionable stimulus spending, we want to know. Call us at 1-888-996-TIPS (8477) or email theunit@nbcbayarea.com
May
14
2012
by John Sexton
The President has recently made a habit of claiming that oil self-sufficiency is impossible because the US has just 2% of the world’s oil reserves. However, congressional testimony given Thursday May 10th reinforces that America is exceedingly rich in natural resources, especially a type of oil reserves known as oil shale.
However, the testimony also pointed out that the future development of these resources, 72 percent of which is controlled by the Bureau of Land Management, is largely up to the federal government. The present administration doesn’t seem very eager to get at those (or other) natural resources.
The GAO testimony last week highlighted just how significant the oil shale reserves in the western United States are:
Being able to tap the vast amounts of oil locked within U.S. oil shale formations could go a long way toward satisfying the nation’s future oil demands. The Green River Formation—an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming—contains the world’s largest deposits of oil shale. USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions. The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered. At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world’s proven oil reserves.
The report makes clear what this level of resource development could mean for our economy:
Development of oil shale resources could lead to the creation of jobs, increases in wealth, and increases in tax and royalty payments to federal and state governments for oil produced on their lands. The extent of these benefits, however, is unknown at this time because the ultimate size of the industry is uncertain.
However, the government is also concerned about the environmental impacts, specifically that development could “have significant impacts on the quality and quantity of surface and groundwater resources.” The current GAO testimony largely recapitulates a report issued in 2010 calling for more study of the water resources in the area. For its part, the BLM issued a draft environmental impact statement in February that also focuses on further study as a first step.
This approach is in keeping with the administration other moves largely in opposition to the development of North American oil and gas reserves. The administration refused to permit the Keystone XL pipeline, citing environmental concerns, which would have delivered oil from Canadian tar sands to the gulf coast. At the end of March the administration also used the pretext of further environmental study to delay the possibility of offshore Atlantic oil drilling leases for a minimum of five years. Obama’s EPA is currently investigating hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), which has recently led to a boom in natural gas production in the US. Simultaneously, the Obama EPA has released new coal plant regulations which make the cost of coal prohibitive and have already led to the closing of numerous coal plants.
In a bit of spin worthy of George Orwell, Obama calls this his “all of the above” energy strategy.
May
14
2012
by Mike Flynn
I expect the media to be in a surly mood tonight. After months of manufactured “GOP War on Women” silliness, a new CBS/NYT poll (!) finds Romney leading Obama 46-44% among woman voters. Mind you, that isn’t GOP woman or even independent women, but ALL women voters.
More importantly, today’s poll finds a notable shift among women in just the last month. In April, Obama was leading Romney by 6% among women. No other group saw an 8 point shift in their support.
Turns out women’s top concern is the same as men’s: The Economy. All the contrived outrage about contraceptives and women’s health can’t mask the fact that 73% of voters listed either the economy or the federal deficit as their number on issue.
Looks like its going to be a long, hot summer for Team Obama.
May
14
2012
by Mike Flynn
Realizing that Obama’s reelection is in serious jeopardy, the President’s campaign today released a two-minute ad slamming Mitt Romney for layoffs made at a company controlled by Bain Capital. The ad is built around interviews with former steelworkers at GST Steel, a mill in Kansas City, who were laid off as the company collapsed in the wake of a downturn in the steel market. The ad is certainly gripping and emotional. It is also, however, completely wrong.
The company was shut down in 2001. Romney left Bain in 1999, long before the plant closing, to run Winter Olympics. Two years is an eternity in the business world. Blaming Romney for decisions made two years after the left the company is at best disingenuous.
However, there was a political power-player serving as a director of Bain at the time of the company’s bankruptcy and layoffs–Jonathan Lavine. Lavine joined Bain in 1993. He is currently Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer. He is also a major bundler for Barack Obama, raising between $100-200k for the his reelection. While we don’t know the specific role Lavine had in decisions regarding the bankrupt company, he certainly had more influence than someone who had left Bain two years before.
Perhaps Obama should use some of Lavine’s donations to help the steelworkers featured in his ad.